Huge Spill of Hog Waste Fuels an Old Debate in North Carolina

Published: June 25, 1995

HAW BRANCH, N.C., June 24—
The worst hog-waste spill in state history sent 25 million gallons of waste gushing into the New River this week, killing fish and taking the battle over the hog industry to a new level.

A dike surrounding an eight-acre receptacle for hog waste at Oceanview Farms in Onslow County collapsed on Wednesday afternoon. Knee-deep red, soupy waste rushed over roads and tobacco and soybean fields and into two nearby tributaries of the New River until the waste lagoon, which is 12 feet deep and held waste from more than 10,000 hogs, was virtually empty.

"A lagoon is something a beautiful girl swims in on Fantasy Island," said Don Webb, a spokesman for the Alliance for a Responsible Swine Industry. "This was a cesspool. Twenty-five million gallons of feces and urine. We've been telling them that things like this happen."

But others argued that the spill was an isolated accident. In the long run, they said, chemicals from industrial plants will cause far more harm than hog plants.

"People have been hard on hog farms," said Charles Carter Jr., an owner of the company that built the lagoon. "People are just trying to make a living."

Groups that think the $1 billion hog industry is polluting air and water and ruining the rural quality of life have fought for a year for tighter restrictions on the farms and the waste they produce. But local and state lawmakers, facing a lobbying effort by politically potent farmers, have backed down in most cases. North Carolina is the nation's second-largest hog producer.

Politics aside, the immediate concern for officials and residents of Onslow County, in the southeastern part of the state, is the spill's impact on the river, crops and area groundwater.

While state and Federal officials tracked the waste through the river, discussed possible fines and began an investigation of the spill, neighbors were still reeling.

"It came through the woods," said Celia Weston, whose three acres of tobacco and soybeans were coated. "You could see the dark stuff. It made me sick. I thought, 'Oh, there goes our crops.' "

As contractors rushed to build a makeshift dike at the 30-foot-wide gap in the lagoon wall, the waste was reducing oxygen levels in the New River. By 2 P.M. on Thursday, fish hovered near the surface in search of oxygen; several dozen had been found dead. Biologists from the state Division of Environmental Management were bracing for larger fish kills.

They are hoping for heavy rain to dilute the waste and introduce more oxygen into the river.

"There's no way to contain and clean it," said Jim Bushardt, an environmental engineer in the Wilmington office of the Division of Environmental Management.

The farm could be fined $10,000 for every violation the state finds.

The earthen lagoon is meant to hold the waste from 11 hog houses while tiny bugs eat some of the bacteria in it. The waste is then sprayed over a 103-acre field. The farm is not permitted to discharge any of the waste into waterways.

Farm workers blamed the spill on the rain that blanketed Onslow County for much of last weekend. Almost three inches of rain had fallen since Sunday, the National Weather Service said.

Commercial fishermen in downstream communities like Sneads Ferry are shuddering at the thought of the spill making its way there. Fishermen said on Thursday that shellfish, which feed by filtering water, could retain toxins from the spill for years.